


Vital Signs

by solonggaybowser



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Main Game Spoilers, Suggestive Themes, Swearing, fluff with a kinda sad ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-28 23:28:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14460165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solonggaybowser/pseuds/solonggaybowser
Summary: Booker finds Robert alone and unoccupied. He takes the opportunity to ask him a few things.





	Vital Signs

**Author's Note:**

> there's not really anywhere in canon this could've plausibly happened but god knows that ain't never stopped me

Booker almost didn't see them the first time.

He didn't bother looking down that corridor again to check. There wasn't a point, he thought; once the Luteces were out of sight for a split second, that was it.

But going the other way, he did look, just for the hell of it. And there they—there _he_ was. The gentleman Lutece, alone, standing straight and gazing out the window.

To say Booker wasn't at all intrigued would have been lying.

His footsteps were muffled on the carpet; still Lutece—Robert was his name, Booker vaguely recalled Elizabeth informing him—glanced over his shoulder before Booker had expected it.

He turned back to the view. "Mr. DeWitt. Shouldn't you be resting?"

"Shouldn't _you_ be with your sister?"

"Is my sister my keeper?"

A rhetorical question, but whether or not it was meant to be taken humorously Booker wasn't exactly sure. He settled for a noncommittal grunt in response, and he took a spot near Robert to look outside with him.

There was not much to see, especially in the dark of night. Booker could make out only clouds and Columbian buildings floating by, and the buildings certainly had seen better days, but that, well, that was the new normal. He didn't understand what was so fascinating about this view; Robert knew things he didn't, though, so perhaps Robert also saw things he didn't.

Now, Robert Lutece... Booker was almost starting to get used to it, but he and his sister were some strange folks. At first, he had written off the fellow as just another smug limey bastard, but he was obviously... Booker couldn't even say. The man was _something_ , all right. He knew too much; he _existed_ where he pleased; and the whole of the world seemed to be one big, faintly amusing game to him.

(And honestly? Booker hated the look of smug limey bastards, just as much as he _liked_ it.)

"If you got nowhere to be, you mind if I ask you some questions?"

"No, I do not mind." He turned to Booker, his face as blank as ever. "I may even answer them."

Booker snorted. "Great. So..." Where to begin with this guy? "How do you... do that?"

Robert just slightly raised his eyebrows. "Do what, Mr. DeWitt?"

"Showing up out of the blue; vanishing without a trace."

"Ah, simple." A small flourish of his hand. "I am, at once, everywhere and nowhere."

"Simple," repeated Booker, unamused.

"That _was_ the simple explanation, I'm afraid."

Crossing his arms, Booker fell silent in thought. There were, he was beginning to sense, right questions and wrong questions to ask the Lutece twins. He was gonna have to get him from a different angle.

"Are... you real?"

Robert stroked his chin, and for a half second Booker thought he was onto something. "Insofar as 'reality' is strictly limited to any one person's perception of it—"

Nope, colder. "For Christ's sake."

"—yes, I am real." The suggestion of a smirk seemed to flicker on Robert's face. "That corroborates what you know, does it not?"

At least he kept talking; Booker might be able to work with this. "Not completely. Elizabeth read you and your sister went missing. And you had graves. Aren't you supposed to be, well, dead?"

"We are not dead, but neither are we alive."

"Was that also the simple explanation?"

"Hmm." Robert tilted his head in apparent consideration. "Perhaps overly simple. You _are_ free to ask for clarification."

"It's just that you look pretty damn alive to me."

"Appearances can be deceiving, Mr. DeWitt."

Booker didn't respond but watched Robert intently. Also quiet, Robert watched him back, clasping his hands behind him, then quite soon changing his mind about that.

"You breathe, though," Booker observed at last, "and you blink." _And you fidget,_ he thought but didn't say. Really, he didn't remember this guy fidgeting so much.

"Yes, out of habit."

"Yeah? Your heart keep beating out of habit, too? Uh, _do_ you have a heartbeat?"

Robert was silent. He glanced away briefly, just before extending an upturned hand. "Why don't you see for yourself?"

Booker hid his surprise. This seemed kinda... personal for a guy like Robert. Why not just tell him? Lord knows the Luteces weren't averse to talking, anyway.

But, since he offered and Booker didn't mind in the slightest, he went ahead and held the back of Robert's hand (smooth, and a little warm, Booker noticed) to support it as he pressed two fingers to his wrist. The not-living man indeed had a pulse, and a quick-ish one at that.

"Huh. You're sure you're not alive?"

Robert's eyes trailed from their hands to Booker's face. The indifferent expression he had been wearing throughout his entire life (for all Booker knew) took on an aspect of being a bit lost. "I'm terribly sorry; could you repeat the question?"

It was around this time that Booker was getting an idea of what Robert's deal _really_ was.

"Are you, uh, sure you're not alive?" he said again, withdrawing his hands and keeping a close eye on Robert.

"Ah, I see, well," Robert started, hastily recovering, for the most part, his usual put-together air, "although I have all the superficial markers of life, if you were to observe the bigger picture of my existence, you would understand I am not affected by time as living beings are."

"How so? Or, I mean, how aren't you?"

"Though I move, speak, and think, on a larger scale I do not—cannot change. As if time cannot keep hold of me for long enough." An uncharacteristic pause in his speech, as though forgetting what he had wanted say next. "I would even hypothesize my heart rate remains constant."

"But you don't know for sure."

"No, I've not checked."

"Really?"

A small shrug of his shoulders, shake of his head. "I never get around to it."

The conversation was going nowhere. Or rather, it was probably headed in the right direction but proceeding far too slowly; Booker had the sneaking suspicion the poor fellow's nerve might fail him at any second, upon which he would invent an excuse to leave, and nothing in the universe could stop him then. Something had to be done, and fast.

"Well. I reckon now's the time to quit beating around the bush then." And he asked, as mildly as a man like Booker could manage, "How 'bout you just kiss me?"

Robert blinked, and said, very politely, "Sorry?"

"Isn't that what you came here for?"

"Ah... In theory, but I hadn't actually imagined..." he murmured, and he looked down at his hands and seemed to just realize he had been wringing them. Once his hands were separated and his back straightened, he spoke up, "Well, if you're amenable..."

The sight of Robert still valiantly attempting to remain composed brought the tiniest of smiles to Booker's face. He wondered how much longer Robert would be able to keep it up. "I asked, didn't I?"

Robert stepped toward him, the faint lostness returning to his eyes as Booker brought a gentle hand to Robert's chin and tipped his head up. Stroking his face with a thumb, Booker held him for a moment just to get a good look at him. The man was handsome, in a dry, stereotypical kind of way, but when Booker thought about it, there really was something oddly charming about his manner during this whole encounter. Even now, he held his gaze steady while his shaky breath and his hands resting lightly, hesitantly on Booker's waist betrayed him.

"You're blushing," Booker quietly noted, and he closed his eyes and leaned in.

Their lips met much sooner than he expected. (Didn't that figure: take your eyes off a Lutece and who knew what would happen.) The rush that followed drew from him a quiet moan, while his partner let out a long exhale and a muted hum as his grip tightened. Robert otherwise continued to behave with restraint, a restraint that was by now driving Booker up the damn wall. God... What he wouldn't do to see this pristine gentleman, this aloof intellectual, this smug limey finally unraveled. What he wouldn't do... He couldn't help moaning again, simply thinking about it.

Then Robert pulled back, sighing again, eyes turned away. His face was flushed, his hands relaxed—yet seemingly reluctant to leave Booker.

He didn't seem to notice when Booker took his arm and touched his wrist again, until Booker remarked out loud, "You were wrong." Their eyes met, and he gave Robert a soft sort of smirk, removing his fingers to take Robert's hand in his own. "Why don't we find out just how alive you really are?"

For a moment there was such an intensity in Robert's gaze that Booker was convinced Robert, too, desired—maybe _had been_ desiring—exactly that. All he had to do was say it, and curl his fingers around Booker's, and move closer again...

Then, the moment passed. He took back his hand from Booker. "I must go. I'm sorry."

It came as a disappointment to Booker, a greater one than he would have imagined it to be. Did he fail to hold Robert's interest? Or had he somehow misread the entire situation? "Ain't nothing to be sorry for," he muttered sheepishly.

"There's..."

What seemed like a hint of some great sadness showed itself on Robert's face. Regret, or perhaps guilt—or perhaps Booker was projecting his own problems onto Robert.

But it passed quickly, and Robert's stare was grave as he stated, "I've a duty to fulfill, as do you. One of great import. You ought not to stray from it."

The lights overhead flickered and darkened. When they came back online, Booker found himself alone, with his sinking feeling that he knew even less about Robert than he had at the start of their meeting.

But he was right; Booker didn't have time to mess around like this. Afterwards, though... well, if he made it out of this shit somehow, maybe they could get to know each other better. Robert didn't seem like such a bastard after all.


End file.
